I'm having timecode issues in Premiere that I can't seem to fix. Premiere, (both CS3 on a PC and CS4 on a Mac) does not read timecode properly from quicktime files I import. The files were generated from Red One rd3 files, and the timecode reads properly in Quicktime. I have tried outputting QT to various codecs, as well as using the Red proxies. The errors are consistent. I can re-link to a new clip, render with a different codec, and it will show up in the proper place in the timeline, but the TC Premiere reports out in-screen or in an edl is not the TC on the clip. It's not either of the timecodes on the proxies.

The Red media is 23.976 timebase, and the Premiere sequence is 23.976. I have a theory that Premiere is reading the 24-frame TC as 30-frame; the numbers are about 20% off. It makes outputting media for effects artists painful. The only reliable way around it seems to be working with burn-ins and manually referencing the burned-in TC. Does anyone know what might be causing this or how to fix it?

Because the editor I am working with requested QT ProRES files. But the problem is the same on my own system (I'm not an editor, but I have the CS4 suite and did some testing) with the R3D files or the proxies.

I don't think it's got anything to do with the Red plugin one way or the other. The PC with CS3 that my editor was using didn't have the plugin in it. Mine (the Mac with CS4) does. Both exhibit the same issue. Premiere doesn't seem to properly read the TC of ANY Quicktime file we import. And as I said above, it appears to be reading 24-frame TC as if it were 30-frame. The error is just about 20%.

As I think about it, I'm not sure I ever tested with the R3D files. I may have just tested with the proxies, because none of the media was local and the R3Ds don't work so well over the network. If that's true, then all of the sources are a flavor of QT. But it's still a cross-platform, multi-version problem. I'll test with the R3D files over the weekend to see what happens.